For Tree Lovers: Iconic Trees of New York City

Posted in Shop/Book Reviews on December 16 2015, by Joyce Newman

Joyce H. Newman is an environmental journalist and teacher. She holds a Certificate in Horticulture from The New York Botanical Garden.

For Benjamin Swett, photographer and author of New York City of Trees, every tree has a story, and their stories connect us to the past as well as foreshadow the future. His award-winning book, available at NYBG Shop (Quantuck Lane Press, $29.95), features NYBG‘s “good-looking” European hornbeam (Carpinus betulus ‘Fastigiata’), the unusual snake branch spruce (Picea abies ‘Virgata’) and magnificent dawn redwoods (Metasequoia glyptostoboides) located in the Benenson Ornamental Conifers collection, and the stunning grove of four Tanyosho pines (Pinus densiflora ‘Umbraculiferas’) near the reflecting pool beyond the Conservatory Gate at NYBG.

Swett credits NYBG’s Todd Forrest and Deanna Curtis, both experts in woody plants, for being “enormously helpful to me, not only in my research into the many trees included from the NYBG, but also on general questions of forestry and the history of the different species.”

The book presents trees that are scattered across the five boroughs of New York City, with dozens of  images, each selected with a view to sharing the experiences of the people who live near them.

The images were shot from 2002 to 2012. “I would go back two, three, four times—different times of day, different seasons,” said Swett describing his process to the New York Times. “I was constantly being approached by people from the neighborhoods who had stories: ‘My grandfather told me that tree was growing here when he was a boy,’ or ‘I remember when so-and-so threw something and it got stuck in the tree.’ They would talk about something having to do with the tree that they had long harbored in their hearts.”

Among the trees selected by Swett are a Chinese maidenhair (Ginkgo biloba) in Isham Park in northern Manhattan,” one of the largest of its species in the city,” and an Osage orange (Maclura pomifera) planted more than 150 years ago by Frederick Law Olmsted at his home on Staten Island.

Earlier in his career, Swett worked as a newspaper reporter, and for many years was a writer and photographer for the New York City Parks Department. He currently teaches photography workshops at Wave Hill in Riverdale, where there is a solo exhibition of his photographs. His works are in the collections of the Museum of the City of New York, New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts, Montefiore Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital, and other public and private collections.